New National Policy Statement for Protecting Highly Productive Land

By Leigh McKenzie

Central government recently brought in a new National Policy Statement under the Resource Management Act 1991 to protect Highly Productive Land. The purpose of this new policy is to protect high class soils for food and fibre production for the future as it is a non-renewable resource. The new policy is to direct new housing developments and subdivisions away from Highly Productive Land.

The subdivision of land for urban development and lifestyle blocks has been encroaching on and diminishing the usefulness of Highly Productive Land in New Zealand. Highly Productive Land in the new policy, refers to land with high class soils and suitable land-use zoning for primary production. The policy uses local council’s existing land-use zones, but the policy is to prevent future subdivision and housing developments in these precious areas of productive land. 

As an organisation promoting food production in tandem with protection of soils, this new National Policy Statement is intriguing. Will the new policy help our cause for sustainable food production? How might it affect small-scale market gardeners who we want to support? Does it allow for access to equitable housing, including options such as tiny homes? How does it fit with increasing pine plantations? This article strives to answer these questions.  

The Issue

Figure 1: Map of Highly Productive Land protected by the new National Policy Statement 2022. Source: Landcare Research (2022) ‘Baseline Highly Productive Land’, URL: https://ourenvironment.scinfo.org.nz/maps-and-tools/app/Land%20Capability/lri_luc_hpl, accessed 28/11/2022.

About 15% of land in Aotearoa New Zealand (3,830,000 hectares) is estimated to be highly productive. In the last 20 years, over 35,000 hectares of Highly Productive Land has been lost to urban or rural residential development, and the new Urban Development Policy (2020) encourages more. Furthermore, lifestyle blocks under 8 hectares occupy more than 170,000 hectares of Highly Productive Land. This National Policy Statement for Highly Productive Land requires the country’s most productive land to be identified and managed to prevent inappropriate subdivision, use, and development. The policy came about following the Our Land (2018) report which analysed the pressures facing New Zealand’s most productive soils.

How It Works - Implementation

The policy is now part of the Resource Management Act 1991, which means that all local authorities have to take it into account when approving resource consent applications and writing their plans for how land in the district will be managed. For example, if you are wanting to subdivide an area identified as Highly Productive Land for housing, then you would have to apply to your local council for permission to do that through a resource consent. The local authority would see that your proposal would interfere with Highly Productive Land being used for primary production (production from agricultural, pastoral, horticultural, or forestry activities) and be unlikely to be approved. To gain approval, you would need to prove that your proposal is temporary or will not compromise the viability of using it for primary production. 

Local and Regional Authorities will have three years from 2022 to identify and map Highly Productive Land. They then have a further two years to update their district and regional plans to implement the policy.

Highly Productive Land protected by this policy

Highly Productive Land accounts for high class soils, and existing Land Use Classes which are how Councils have zoned their land, therefore identifying land that is available and suitable for primary production. 

In Otago, where I am writing, the new policy is expected to protect 3,080 hectares of Highly Productive Land with Land Use Class 1 (most versatile multiple-use land, minimal limitations, highly suitable for cropping, viticulture, berry fruit, pastoralism, tree crops, and forestry), 47,320 hectares of Highly Productive Land with Land Use Class 2 (very good multiple-use land, slight limitations, suitable for cropping, viticulture, berry fruit, pastoralism, tree crops, and forestry), and 343,300 hectares of Highly Productive Land with Land Use Class 3 (moderate limitations, restricting crop types and intensity of cultivation, suitable for cropping, viticulture, berry fruit, pastoralism, tree crops, and forestry). 

Impact on small-scale market gardeners

The policy directs that Highly Productive Land should be used for land-based primary production. Also for activities that address public health and safety, encourage indigenous biodiversity, or are small-scale or temporary and have no impact on the productive capacity of the land. This is great for small-scale market gardeners as it means less land that is good quality for growing on will be snatched up for housing subdivisions. However, if a small-scale grower wants to buy a smaller parcel of land, the land is less likely to be subdivisible. As long as the grower can prove the viability of the small parcel of land for primary production, then the subdivision would be allowed by this policy. 

One complication to consider is the implication for land access. This policy prioritises large sections of land which could make it less accessible, as it would come at a higher upfront cost due to the scale. This leads to the same questions in equitable land access for small-scale growers that our organisation wants to address. 

Implications for housing 

If you wish to subdivide your Highly Productive Land, or rezone it for urban development or rural lifestyle, you will need resource consent or undertake a plan change. In the case of subdivision, you will need to demonstrate that the productive capacity of the land will be retained, or that existing permanent or long-term restrictions on the land mean it is no longer viable for land-based primary production and therefore not fit for primary production. 

Since tiny houses are temporary/not permanent, it seems they may be allowed on Highly Productive Land under this policy. The policy also allows for supporting infrastructure for primary production such as sorting sheds. Good news for our small-scale growers!

However, there is an exemption in the policy where local councils are allowed to rezone Highly Productive Land for urban development if there is no other option possible for the objectives of the Urban Development Policy (2020) to be achieved, and if the benefits of using it for housing outweighs the long-term costs of losing the Highly Productive Land. 

This seems like a risky exemption to have in the policy, as the Urban Development policy is written to allow free building development on land, outwards and upwards. If a council can find that rezoning is the way to go, it might be easy for them to justify and therefore compromise the integrity and strength of this policy for protecting our precious soils. 

What about primary production practices that degrade soils?

There is increasing concern in New Zealand that productive land is being taken up for pine plantations. Village Agrarians supports all work to address climate change, but pine plantations are not an approach we endorse. The lack of biodiversity that these plantations are able to host is at odds with creating a sustainable future, not to mention the devastating impacts of clear-felling if the forests are eventually harvested. The downfalls of pine plantations makes this question worth investigating. 

This policy protects Highly Productive Land for land-based primary production. In the policy, land based primary production means production from agricultural, pastoral, horticultural, or

forestry activities that are reliant on the soil resource of the land. In other words, it does not really restrict the kind of primary production that Highly Productive Land can be used for, so it seems pine forestry will be allowed to resume on Highly Productive Land.

Although the policy does not restrict the use of Highly Productive Land for pine plantations or other primary production practices that deplete soils, it does have clauses that encourage indigenous biodiversity, and for councils to consider cumulative adverse effects of activities on Highly Productive Land. This may mean that other activities such as horticulture and indigenous biodiversity would be prioritised over more intensive primary production like pine plantations and conventional farms, but these practices that can deplete soils are not inhibited by the policy.

Conclusion

To conclude, this policy gives legal gravity to protecting our most productive land. It is great to see the government giving importance to and taking action to protect our precious soil resources for primary production. Giving this non-renewable resource legal recognition is a great step forward for sustainable land management. 

This new national policy means that highly productive land is protected for the future. However the policy could have consequences for equitable land access for small-scale growers by prioritising large sections of land, making it more expensive to access. This leads to the same challenges Village Agrarians has identified for achieving more equitable land access. 

The policy also has an exemption which allows Councils to rezone land for urban development if there is no alternative for providing sufficient housing. Housing has been pushed via the Urban Development Policy 2020 in order to address the housing crisis, which is critical, but we can’t afford housing at the cost of our non-renewable resources for food security. 

Pine plantations are still allowed on Highly Productive Land by the policy, but it does require councils to encourage indigenous biodiversity and consider cumulative effects of the activity that Highly Productive Land is used for. This may mean that other activities would be prioritised over pine plantations, but they are not inhibited by the policy. 

The policy doesn’t prevent Highly Productive Land from being used for practices such as monocultures or intensive grazing which would deplete the value of the soils it is intended to protect. We would like to see the policy go a step further and actually protect the soil by disallowing these activities on it, since they have already identified that it is valuable. 

Overall, this policy seems to be a positive outcome for protecting our soil resources. However, it comes with the caveat of potential issues for equitable land access, and urban development. If urban development can still be justified, it can go ahead. It also seems too permissive around the kinds of practices allowed on these valuable soils. The policy seems promising, but only time will tell whether it works to create meaningful positive change! 

Grower Spotlight - Eve Clarke of Forage Flowers

I believe that if we use our joy as a compass to guide our actions, the world will be a kinder and more beautiful place. 

Eve, the founder of Forage Flowers, gives us a brightly colored, and fragrant example of how following your joy is good for the world. Doing what she loves, Eve has started a small flower farm, growing beautiful, spray free flowers in West Auckland. 

“My favorite thing is giving people flowers,” she told me. Involved in horticulture and ecology work for years, Eve found in her days as an ecologist she was most inspired by collecting native flowers and arranging them in her kitchen. Even as a kid, she knew where all the freesias grew along the beach. She loved to pick them and offer them to her neighbors and people she passed on her walks. 

Now, Eve grows as many flowers as she can in her small 250 square meter garden, using dense and succession planting methods to ensure she always has blooms on the way (while still leaving plenty for the bees!). Starting Forage Flowers was not easy - Eve was building beds and learning to arrange and sell flowers all at once with the help of her husband, Sam. She was up into the wee hours of the morning every Friday night, preparing to sell flowers at The Shed Collective, a plant based market in West Auckland, on Saturdays during her first year of business in 2020. 

Through her experience, Eve has learned some concerning things about the floral industry that demonstrate how important it is to consider where our flowers come from. She explained to me that many flowers sold in New Zealand are imported from overseas, and there is no requirement that their country of origin be printed, as there is with food. Imported flowers are fumigated to kill all bugs, and are dipped in roundup (glyphosate) before they come to the country to prevent them from growing here. She learned this when she asked a florist about buying some chrysanthemums to use to start her own from cuttings. The sad news from the florist was: it won’t work due to all the chemicals they have been treated with! 

The lack of transparency in the floral industry makes it all the more important to buy locally grown, spray free flowers. Eve is happy that flower farms are becoming more popular in Aotearoa, and that flower collectives are starting around the country. The community of flower farmers is supportive and excited to share information to help make sustainable, quality flowers available here. 

Forage Flowers is growing too. “Once it’s not your hobby anymore, it gets a bit hard,” Eve told me. All summer last year, she kept picking and picking to keep the flowers coming, and people would contact her all week to order more flowers. Happily, Forage Flowers will have some more hands when they hire their first employee soon. It is important to Eve to do everything well, and by that standard she is also committed to paying employees a living wage. 

Along with expanding their team, Eve is hoping to expand the gardens. She is looking for opportunities for land sharing in West Auckland so that Forage will have room to grow. Landsharing is beneficial for all parties involved in that growers can access land without needing to purchase it, and the person sharing the land gets to enjoy the benefits of a grower stewarding a part of their land. Eve’s gardens are a dream for pollinators and humans alike, and anyone who shares land with Forage Flowers would be very lucky. We hope Eve finds a good opportunity to landshare soon, and that this type of relationship becomes more common and accessible for new growers.  

To summarize her work as a new flower farmer, Eve reflected to me: “You bring people joy with your job. It’s not often you get to do that.” 

If you live in the Auckland area, be sure to check out Forage Flowers and treat yourself to some of the joy Eve is growing this summer. She will continue to sell flowers at The Shed Collective, doing bouquet orders for special occasions and birthdays, and she is hoping to have a roadside stall up and running at the farm soon. You can see the latest from Forage Flowers on their Instagram or Facebook.

Written by Naomi Morgan
Photos by Eve Clarke

Community Spotlight - Grow Wanaka

At Village Agrarians, we were excited to learn about the work of Grow Wanaka, a new organization contributing to the growing community food system in Wanaka and the Lakes District. While their physical space is a small approximately 28 meter by 17 meter garden, their vision is far reaching. Their desire to create a vibrant educational hub where community members can learn, connect and grow drives the group's action. As Chairperson Chloe Rowe explains, once you have an idea, you just need to start and see how it goes. Preparing to enter their first growing season, this is exactly what Grow Wanaka is doing. 

“It’s crazy that people who need food can’t afford it, and there is so much empty space (to grow food)” Chloe said to me as she explained her personal motivation for her work with Grow Wanaka. After Covid Lockdown in 2020, some community members connected over the idea of starting a community garden as a way to produce nutritious food and bring community members together. While there are a few market gardens in the Wanaka area, the group saw a gap for a community garden that could divert organic waste from landfill to produce nutritious food for the community, so they took up the project. 

Their journey to find their small plot of land was not without roadblocks. In looking for suitable land, Grow Wanaka was surprised to find some community resistance from potential neighbouring properties. However, the support the group has found outweighs any objections they faced. They were approached by a private landholder who was open to their goals to build a community garden. With community support to go ahead, Grow Wanaka is making a conscious effort to leave the site better than they found it. They are in the process of designing and building a beautiful garden which will be lovingly cared for. 

They are aiming for a “template hopefully others will be able to recreate,” Chloe explained. And their vision is not just for producing food, but for creating a system which gives back to the earth. Currently, Grow Wanaka is setting up a vermicomposting collection program. This will divert food scraps from the landfill, and build healthy soil to grow nourishing food. They have both Iwi and district council support for the project, and are currently seeking consent from the regional council to get vermicomposting activities underway. Many local businesses and organizations have already provided great support for the project and they look forward to connecting and collaborating with many more throughout the process. 

Part of our ethics at Village Agrarians is a belief that equitable food systems include fair compensation for those working on the land and Chloe told me that Grow Wanaka share this vision. They hope that the vermicomposting program will be self-generating employment, charging businesses a fee for collecting scraps. The castings can then go into the garden, and the plants will go back to people. This circular system will simultaneously generate employment, reduce waste to the landfill, provide an education space for community members, and give back to the community in the form of fresh veggies.  

Because Grow Wanaka is not focusing on growing for the seasonal market, it gives them more flexibility and diversity in what crops they can grow. They are able to plant long growing crops such as pumpkins and broccoli, and experiment with methods such as the Three Sisters to grow beans, corn and squash together, creating a fun and relaxed growing and learning environment.  

In the future, to guarantee sustainability and longevity of the project, they would love to be able to employ a garden manager whose purpose is in keeping the garden managed and looked after, and who can focus on managing the volunteers and visitors to the space.

And who will eat the food that Grow Wanaka will produce? Ideally, whoever needs it. Right now, their vision is that food will be available to those who volunteer, and surplus will go back to the community. Grow Wanaka will be partnering with Food For Love, the Community Food Hub and the Foodbank to distribute produce and increase food resilience in the area. 

When I asked Chloe about her personal interest in growing food she replied, “hands in the dirt is my solace. Put me in the dirt, I’m happy.” As Grow Wanaka enters its first growing season, we hope more people can experience the joy of putting their hands in the dirt and contribute to this little garden making a big change. 

Because Grow Wanaka is a new organization and still growing, they are looking to build capacity and resources in a couple of areas. If you have any skills in funding applications, vermicomposting, or are interested in supporting the work that Grow Wanaka is undertaking, please get in touch with them at wanakacommunitygarden@gmail.com.

Written by Naomi Morgan
Photos from Chloe Rowe

Dylan - Crooked Roots Farm

When people are able to step on the land where their food comes from, it sparks something special. A connection between people, and the earth. Dylan Parker, who is involved in many food growing projects in the Christchurch area, knows this first hand. When he was a kid, Dylan’s grandparents owned a biodynamic farm in Fairlie. He spent time there, as well as in the Marlborough Sounds, foraging for berries and mushrooms. Deeply passionate about growing food and cultivating a relationship with land, he dedicates his energy to help more people have the opportunity to connect with place, even if they are living in urban areas.

The questions Dylan’s work seeks to address are ones we want to answer through Village Agrarians too. How can we help more people be empowered to grow food and to have a relationship with land and place? How can food be produced in a sustainable and equitable way? Many of the projects Dylan is working on in Christchurch contain answers to these questions. 

Cultivate Christchurch, Dylan’s mainstay, provides paid internships for young people where they learn to grow food as well as develop job skills. He says one of the most powerful things about this work is when older interns have the opportunity to teach newer interns. He enjoys watching knowledge passed between people and he believes the internship is a valuable life experience, showing young people you do not need to have a job in a building, that working outside is valid too. The program is an entry point for some of the interns to go on to study Organic Horticulture at the BHU. Dylan mentioned that while many interns become very interested in sustainable food production through their internship at Cultivate, difficulty in accessing land and jobs in the field is a challenge that sadly prevents many from continuing. 

While the challenge new growers face in finding land is ongoing and something Village Agrarians hope to help address, fortunately, Dylan and some friends have accessed land through the BHU to steward a project called Crooked Roots. Crooked Roots is a farm focused on a mixture of really slow crops, for example Burdock and Celeriac, as well as dye plants like woad and Japanese Indigo, and seedlings trees. The friends all work on the project on their days off, and are open source with anything they are growing. The group is keen to share seeds and knowledge with anyone who is interested, and is glad to have the opportunity to grow what they want, focusing on crops that are too slow, or different, for many growers to cultivate. Excited to have dye plants that will be red, blue and yellow, Dylan looks forward to using these primary colors to make ink for woodblock printing! 

In addition to these two projects, Dylan is moving intentionally to help activate a new project in the Red Zone along the Ōtākaro Avon River Corridor. It is a beautiful resource the city has, and the project aims to create a community engagement site with demonstration gardens so that people can connect with place, and be empowered to grow food themselves. 

We were so excited to learn about all of these projects that Dylan is involved with and the ways that they are creating the more sustainable, equitable and connected food system we are envisioning for tomorrow. If you want to connect with Dylan to learn more about his work, check him out on Instagram at @Crookedroots.nz and @Farmerdillo. You can also read about and support the work of Cultivate Christchurch on their website. 

Written by Naomi Morgan
Photos by Dylan Parker

CSA - An Entry Point to Community Food

My entry point into the world of organic, community focused agriculture was through the first CSA share I ever participated in. The CSA, which stands for Community Supported Agriculture, is a popular model for small scale farms to get produce directly from the farm, to the people. I attended an information session at my university in Oregon where two local farmers came to introduce the idea of Community Supported Agriculture to students. The farmers had prepared some roasted parsnip snacks to share while discussing their commitment to organic principles, their history with farming, and the ways the CSA model benefits the whole community. We learned that by entering into a partnership and paying for a share of the harvest at the start of the season, the community invests in the farm and the farmer. This ensures the farmer has the necessary capital to invest in infrastructure, tools and seeds at the start of the season. In turn, the community receives a share of the harvest every week. 

For me, the CSA was an entirely new idea. The invitation to participate in something different from the supermarket was exciting: the shiny promise of fresh vegetables would make every week feel special, and while the produce would be expected, the variety would be a surprise to look forward to. My friends and I faced just a couple of issues, one being that the share provided enough vegetables to feed a family, and the other, which felt like more of a barrier, was the commitment to paying up front for months worth of food. 

Naomi picking raspberries in Oregon.

Our desire to enter the community of the farm by becoming CSA members led us to form a small community in our household. If one share provides enough to feed a family, we could become a family, sharing food and cooking together. We talked to the farm about our financial situation as students, and luckily they allowed us to split the payments, making it possible for us to become part of the community for the season. And so began our adventure as a new CSA household. Each week we would wait eagerly for the email from our farmer (our farmer! It was so exciting to know her!) featuring a beautiful photo of greens, onions, tomatoes, as well as things I had never heard of, like kohlrabi and celeriac. We would go together to the car park across the street from campus where we picked up our vegetables every week. At home we tried new recipes, ate lots of salads, and turned many meals into potlucks. 

Looking back, I know that the first season of joining a CSA catalyzed a change in my relationship with food and agriculture. I started thinking about things I had never considered before. I knew my farmer, Carrie, was getting paid a fair wage, but what about the people who grew the food for the supermarkets? What were their wages like? And all of those heads of broccoli and boxes of berries and perfect apples didn’t come from nowhere. Where were they grown? And how did they get to the shelf, lined up all uniform and shiny?

In Aotearoa, the majority of the food grown here is shipped overseas. The history of conventional farming as a colonial project to feed Britain shapes many practices and standards in conventional agriculture today. But Aotearoa has a longer history of organic and community farming than conventional agriculture. Maori horticulture and gardening traditions are far more productive, generative and able to sustainably feed communities than conventional methods. Luckily more people are recognizing and honoring this knowledge every year. 

Our goal at Village Agrarians is to support as many people as possible to get involved in local, organic, and equitable food systems. Finding an entry point is essential, and for me, it was joining a CSA. As interest in local food systems grows, we are digging into questions of access, affordability and equity. We are asking questions like, what is the best way to support new growers who want an active role in feeding their community? How can the CSA model be affordable to everyone who wants to be involved? Is it possible for farmers to offer a sliding scale membership where members pay according to their ability? Maybe door delivery with an electric vehicle could help busy families get fresh vegetables, while also acting in a way that is mindful of climate change. In my eyes, we must support a change to sustainable and equitable agriculture with and for each other. We hope you will get involved too, because together we can shift far more than any one of us could alone.

By Naomi Morgan